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Fourme dAmbert - bugs & mold

Started by CdnMorganGal, December 11, 2011, 10:36:21 PM

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CdnMorganGal

I made 2 batches of this cheese, one on Oct 20 and the other on Nov 2 (200 Easy Homemade Cheese Recipe book).  Then I was away for 3 weeks.  Hubby tried to take care of it, but the temps fluctuated til the thermostat arrived and he let them dry out.  I had him wrap the first in foil after 30 days, as per the recipe.  When I got back the wrapped cheese was slimy - so I cleaned it up a bit, put them in new containers and upped the humidity. Then I got busy, and ignored them.  This is how they look today. Unfortunately, there were some bugs - similar to fruit flies but not fruit flies crawling around on them and in the water.  I had a very small piece of the older cheese - definitely a blue taste but not very strong.  How should I store these cheeses now? wrapped, unwrapped? etc.  And since the rind has white, blue, fuzzy and other assorted molds can it be eaten or cut away when serving? especially since there were bugs crawling around on them?  Thank you for ideas/suggestions.

Tomer1

By the amount of veining it looks like you can start eating it now but perhaps it wont be as melt in your mouth as it could have been.

The rind can be washed with brine to clean it up.

If you have a vacuum gadget you can close them up and let them mature further without the blue getting out of control.

iratherfly

#2
Cheese mites? Hurray! They could be very good for cheese. They are crawling ans tiny tiny tiny. They dig tiny little holes in the rind. A typical sign is to find this brownish "cheese dust" all around or under/over the cheese. Is that what you have?

They are not all bad and are actually used to help with the rinds of many cheeses (including some very commercial ones). French Mimolette is a good example, Montgomery raw Cheddar is another one dunk the cheese in 18%-24% brine for a little bit. If any of them are on the cheese it will kill them and they will float away. The brine will also help stabilize your cheese, hardning up the rind and killing to much geo. If you don't want to see them again... clean the cave really well.

Do you have a photo of the bugs?

CdnMorganGal

Sorry, not cheese mites - they were able to fly and had hard shells as compared to fruit flies, and dont have any pics - was too busy getting rid of them and cleaning up to even think about taking a picture LOL.

CdnMorganGal

Wouldnt dunking the cheese mean some brine entering the middle via the holes? and therefore not be good for the cheese? Wouldnt washing be better?

iratherfly

You would just dunk it for a few minutes. It's not as strong as brining full time and of course this isn't fresh/moist cheese: it's denser, harder and already partially saturated with salt so osmosis is very slow. It's mainly on the rind, maybe just below it